where more news is always on captioned by closed captioning services, inc. >> chris: i'm chris wallace reporting from austin, texas, where are republican pressial candidate rick perry looks to relaunch his campaign. with a new plan to reform taxes and cut spending, the one-time frontrunner tries to reinvigorate his run for the white house. in a "fox news sunday" exclusive we will talk with the texas governor about getting america back to work, immigration, foreign policy and whether he is going to skip some of those gop debates. rick perry, only on "fox news sunday." also, president obama takes his new message for a test drive. we'll ask our sunday panel if we can't wait is a new way to govern for just a campaign

slogan. our power player of the week tries to help our national leaders do the right thing, all right now on "fox news sunday." and hello again from fox news. this time reporting from austin, texas, in the texas state h history museum. we have come to the state capital in austin to talk with the former frontrunner in the race for the republican presidential nomination who is now trying to relaunch his campaign. we continue our series of 2012 one on one interviews with texas governor rick perry and governor, welcome back to "fox news sunday." >> thank. >> you. welcome to texas and i hope you have enjoyed your stay. >> chris: we have so far. you dropped from the leader to a low of 6%. your new campaign staffers talk about trying to reboot, per

which 2.0. >> for the first eight week we were traveling across the country. people knew i was the governor of the state of texas and i had a beautiful and smart wife. the last two weeks now they actually got to put the meat on the bone, if you will. we laid out our jobs and energy plan. 1.2 million americans back to work. opening up federal lands and waters for energy exploration. getting country back truly secure from high tile countries we are buying other than oil from. then we laid out the cut and balance and grow plan where we talk about the 20% flat tax and talk about how to cut the spending and how we grow this economy. i think when americans take a look at that they will go you know what, not omaha bank is this a great plan this fellow has got the record as the governor of texas for ten years of doing it. that is who we need in the white house that has the courage to stand in the gap and

put these things in place. >> chris: we had 6 million people watch the last fox debate, why should the voters disregard the last two months? quite frankly the poor performance in the debates and the hpv sack seen, things that didn't turn ought to be as conservative as they might hope? >> when you look at the debates i am not the best debater in the world. with all the debates we have coming up i may be the best debater when all is said and done. nobody has been stronger on immigration than i have. take the issue of whether or not governors have to deal with tough and hard issues because the federal government has failed at securing the border and then we have to deal with that. i readily respect that and would not tell any state they need to do a particular thing on that as we did in the state

of texas. whether it is putting recon teams on the border. vetoing driver's license bill for illegals. passing a voter identification bill before you can vote. there is not anybody on the stage any tougher and right on on the immigration issues than i am. >> chris: let's talk about the debates, though. your staff indicated that you are going to skip some but the news overnight is you signed up nor the next five debates which take you into november and into early december but you told bill o'reilly this week you felt it was a mistake to participate in any of them. why? >> i said that 18 debates i think is way too many debates. frankly, that is an incredible amount of time and preparation and what have you. i really like getting out and being able to talk to people just like i'm talking with you today where you have time to lay out your ideas. we have a great debater and smooth politician in the white house right now. that is not working out very good for america. if you want to know how somebody is going to perform in

the future take a look at their past. as the governor in the state of texas we created more jobs in the state than any other state in the country. i think that is what americans are interested in. people sitting around the coffee table today, the kitchen table and going how are we going to get this country back working again. i laid out a plan, i have the courage and the record to put that in place. >> chris: we will get to your plan and drill down to it in a moment. i still want to focus on the debate. what i h heard and e-mails from a lot of conservative voters say okay, maybe he is not the greatest debater but we need somebody next fall where there will be three big debates. 100 million people watching each time who is going to be able to get up on the stage against barack obama and make the case against hip and they worry based on your prance you are not that plan. >> i'm not worried that i will be able to stand on the stage with barack obama and draw a line between an individual who

lost it 2* .5 million jobs in the country. someone signaling to the opponents when we are going pull out of a particular war zone. an individual who has taken an experiment with the american economy and turned it into an absolute franken stein experience. i think i'm going to be able to stand on that stage and draw a clear contrast with barack obama. >> okay. you did propose a major tax reform plan this week and as i said we have got some time so let's drill down into some of the details of it. you give people a choice, a 20% flat tax or they can stay in the current system. now, one o -- most people are going to figure it out and decide to go with the plan that they pay the fewer taxes, the less in taxes. your campaign says and they sent this out to a private accounting firm this would mean $4.7 trillion less in revenue over the first six years from 2014 to 2020. doesn't the perry plan blow a hole in the deficit?

>> you got to look at the spending cuts as well and look at the dynamics of the growth that goes on here. you can't just say take one little piece of this and say here is the plan. it is not. this is the plan that gives people an option. and i think a good option to be able to do their taxes on a postcard literally taking that 20% tax flat tax deducting mortgage, deducting charitable, deducting taxes, 12,500 for each dependent, substracting it and sending it in, literally on a post card. it is that simple to put it on that postcard right there. i mean that is it. and then people have the confidence. people have the confidence, the job creators. plan is about getting people back to work, putting the confidence back in the american enter pray knew to know that

the burdens are not going to be there. you know who will hate this is the washington lobbyists carving out the corporate loopholes and manipulating our tax codes. put those guys out of business. that is the type of approach that americans are looking for a simple tax code, corporate tax rate of 20%. bring the corporate tax proceeds back from offshore and we will balance that budget in 2020. nobody says it going to be easy, but we need a president who has a commitment to that who has got a track record of doing that and i have. >> chris: a couple of quick questions. you talk about simplicity but the fact is a lot of people would have to calculate their taxes the old way. they would have to calculate the taxes with the alternative minimum tax. they would have to calculate the taxes with the new 20%. far from being simple you might have to calculate the taxes

this would be a boon for my account and the, three ways to figure out which is the cheapest. >> i think americans know off the top of their headle take the 20% flat tax increases and the deductions and send that in. there may be some folks out there that want to go ask the account and thes and lawyers, that is the great thing about the choice here. but it will substantively change the irs as we know it today. >> chris: let's talk about this question of growth. your campaign says static scoring which is just going with the numbers and assumptions as they are, almost $5 trillion less in revenue over the first six years. the campaign says yeah but you got to get economic growth and this will end up being a trillion dollars more. here is the problem with that. everybody agrees that if you lower taxes you do increase economic growth. but even conservative think tanks like the heritage foundation say almost never do tax cuts pay for themselves. you still end up, you are

making increase economically but still end up with lower revenue. >> and there is nothing wrong with lower revenue. i americans are ready for washington, d.c. to quit spending money. we will pay off that deficit. our plan balances this budget in 2020 and we will pay off that debt. no one else on that stage is laying off on a plan. mitt romney basically just nibblearound the edges. he leave the rates where they are. mr. cain's plan creates two new sources of revenue. i don't want more revenue in washington, d.c.'s hands. i want more revenue in the private sector job creators hands and in american citizens out there. i guarantee they will make better decisions about how to spend that money than washington, d.c. >> chris: we will get to the spending cuts because that is an important part of it in a moment. i want to ask you one more thing about the tax plan and that is tax fairness. almost everyone who looks at

your plan says the people who do the best in this plan in terms of a tax cut are the wealthy. according to one analysis up here on the screen a family of four earning $425,000 would see their tax bill drop from $91,000 to 46,400. almost a 50% cut. this is what you said the other day. >> for those at the top it is hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of dollars for them. but i don't care about that. what i care about is them having the dollars to invest in their companies. >> chris: question, when the rich and by all of the studies of income jen equality when the rich are getting richer and the middle class are struggling, why don't you care about tax fairness? >> everybody gets a tax cut here. everybody gets a tax cut here. >> chris: but the rich get a bigger are tax cut. >> and historically those who have money put more into their

businesses and hire more people. that is what we need to be focused on. how do you give incentives to that the 14 millionle that don't have a job have a shot to take care of their country. the idea of class warfare and that is what we are talking about here. you have the president and some people that want to talk about class warfare that the rich will have more money and what have you. i'm interested in individuals who are going to be able to invest in this country and keep more of what they work for and when they do that they will invest in companies and create job. that is what this debate ought to stay on, not creating class war fare. >> you are saying that yes, the wealthy, the job creators are going to end up getting bigger tax cuts under the perry plan than the middle class and you are tocai with that? >> i want to see people

investing. the idea, again, i'm not for class war fare. if somebody wants to push the issue and try to divide this country i'm for bringing people together to create jobs and give americans a better chance to take care of their families. >> chris: let's turn to spending. you say that you are going to cap spending at 18% of the economy, gdp, gross domestic product which is a level we have not seen since 1966. how on earth are you going to do that, governor? >> by cutting the spending. americans are sick and tired of washington's business as usual. they are sick and tired of seeing hundreds of thousands of federal employees be put on the tax rolls that they are having to pay the jobs of stimulus dollars. $4 trillion worth of debt under this president's watch and practically no jobs being created. they are looking for someone who has the courage to stand up and say here is how we are

going to fix social security. if you are on it and approaching it, it will be there for you. give our young people the truth and give them some options are being able to have a private account or maybe a cheting up the age. americans are looking for ideas about how to get out of this mess that washington has put us in and spending cuts is one of them. do away with ear marks. pull out the detail pen and if you have ear marks coming my way they will never make it into law. >> chris: according to a congressional budget office to cut, to go down to 18% gdp you would have to make cuts depending on the year between $700 million and trillion dollars a year. roughly a quarter of the federal budget, you talk and you said you have to have the courage to do it. you are going to make hard choices. tell me programs that people

now count on that you're saying president perry, i'm sorry, you're going to have to do without? >> one place to go to get a broad menu of that, tom coburn has a piece of work called backing mckinley black. in black.right backback i believe it is $9 trillion in cuts. put the elementary and secondary programs together and cut those in half and send half of that back to the states. save $25 trillion right there. >> chris: $25 trillion? >> excuse me, $25 billion. >> you asked me for an example. there is one of the examples. we have so many programs in government that aren't creating jobs. all they are doing is creating government jobs and americans are sick of that. they want someone who will stand up and say listen we are going to cut the size of spending, we are going to cut the size of these programs.

anybody stanford university this is going to be painful, you might want them to be suspect. in texas we cut spending the first time since world war ii. the fact it you have to have a president that has the courage to stand up and say the future of this country demands that we have less spending going on and i will do that. >> chris: the purpose of all of this, of course, is to put america back to work to create jobs. no question about it. you have a strong record here in texas of creating jobs. 40% of all of the new jobs in the last two years here in the state of texas. you talk about that in your first tv commercial. let's take a look. >> as president, i will create at least 2.5 million new jobs and i know something about that. >> governor, here is whey don't get about that 2.5 million jobs. 2.5 million jobs is terrible. that wouldn't be nearly enough for the first four years of an

administration. we looked at it and we would roughly need 6 million jobs in the first four years just to stay even with population growth. so 2.5 million jobs the unemployment rate would increase. jimmy carter created 10.5 million jobs in his first four years. >> i think it is amazeing that people who we have lost 2.5 million jobs in this country and there is another state that is. >> that position to that that created a million jobs and for people to go that is not enough. any job at this this particular point in time helps. you give confidence to the american people. give you a good example, bring in the money offshore, the money that can be repatriated. thathat create according to the american chamber of commerce $360 billion worth of economic activity. we have to give americans the confidence that they will be able to keep more of what they work for and that these regulations that are strangling

businesses, small banks with dodd frank, obama care that is coming down the track, that is going to give the confidence to the job creators. >> chris: 2.5 million jobs doesn't even keep pace -- your enunemployment rate would increase under this goal. >> i don't believe that for a minute. that is just absolutely false on its face. americans will get back to work. are we going to go out and make some claim and say oh, it is going to create 10.5 million jobs, we would be having the same conversation, oh, that is not realistic. i tell you one thing, you give this plan a chance. you put americans where they know that they can pay their income tax on a post card that they will have those kind of cuts and have a balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution in four years they will go back to work. manufacturing jobs will come back to this country. the idea that i will let people talk this plan down for the

sake of having an intellectual discussion is not, correct. i know what happens. in texas we are seeing it and create an environment where they know they can risk the capital and have a return on investment. they will create jobs, lots of them. >> chris: what to you think of president obama's plan to pull troops out of iraq by the end of the year? any time as a commander in chief -- and i have experience, i wore the uniform of the air force, i'm also the commander in chief of the national guard in texas. the idea that is commander in chief would stand up and signal to the enemy a date certain at which we are going to pull our troops out i think is irresponsible. you can be talk -- you need to be talking to commanders in the field and working with the experts who understand what is going on in those countries, for instance. we need to finish our mission in iraq and afghanistan. you better believe i want our kids home as soon as we can and

safe but to give that signal that we are going to pull them out is really bad public policy. but more importantly, it is putting our kids lives in jeopardy. >> in both iraq and afghanistan the president says there have got to be limits to how long we spend building the other nations when there are so many problems here at home. >> well, having the conversation with your generals. when you think about what this president has done. he fired one general because he didn't like what he said about it. he didn't listen to other generals on other issues purchase from my perspectives he lost his standings from the standpoint of being a commander in chief. he is making mistakes that are putting our kids that are in theater and i think future issues dealing with whether it is in the middle east or whether it is in the south china sea with our allies putting all of that in jeopardy because of this unwavering or i

should say this waiverring or aimless approach to foreign policy which he has. >> chris: you said recently that the federal government doesn't have any need to be subsidizing energy, correct? >> that's correct. i think the federal government needs to be out of the subsidization or the tax credit side on the energy. states can do it. >> chris: and i understand and you have done it in this this state. >> chris: why did you write a letter to the secretary of energy urging him to approve a federal loan guarantee for and energy company in texas. >> i don't know which one it is. >> chris: i will put it up on the screen. you wrote the bush administration. i'm patrioting toic press my strong support for the proposed nuclear power generating facility in matagorda county. sounds like you were asking him to do just what you say he shouldn't do.

>> we were asking to at that particular point in time for the federal government to support the nuclear power industry in the state of texas or across the country from that standpoint. but from a general standpoint any type of federal dollars flowing in to these industries we think is bad public policy whether it is the ethanol side, whether it is the nuclear power side, whether it is the -- >> chris: why did you ask him to give the money? >> let me tell you, i changed my position from the standpoint of having any desire to have the federal government. what i learned some things over the course of the years and what i learned is the federal government by and large you you keep them out of these issues particularly on the energy side and i think that is the best position for us to take as americans today. let the markets figure it out. are you going to have federal government making some impact on nuclear energy side from the standpoint of r & d r & d or

having places to be able to deal with these spent fuels and reprocess them, yes. but giving straight up money to energy, do away with it. >> chris: what do you think of mitt romney? >> i don't really know mitt romney well enough to be making a statement. we served together as governors back earlier. >> chris: cocome on. >> no, i really. >> chris: i'm not talking about having dinner with him. you have a view of his record. >> laying out the differences in our records is very important. i have been a consist entocyte. go back through my records. i have been a consistent conservative. always? favor of the second amendment. i have always been prolife. i have always been a fiscal conservative and mit has been on both sides of the issues. been for a ban on guns in

massachusetts. and now he is on the other side of those issues. from the standpoint of having tiffany rent positions we certain -- different positions we certainly do. we are very, very different from the standpoint of consistency on those issues that i just mentioned. >> chris: you have just brought in several new staffers who, quite frankly, have a history of aggressive negative campaigning, for instance, they were involved in the rick scott campaign in florida which is a tough campaign. how hard are you prepared to go after mitt romney in this gop primary fight? >> i don't get confused with just telling the truth what someone might say that is negative. if we are telling the truth about someone, the truth is the truth. whether it hurts your feelings or not. >> chris: you got a little bit of a problem here and i want to put up a new poll. this is the new, iowa des moines register poll just out this morning. it shows herman cain and romney

way ahead of the field in the low he 20s and you back in fifth place at 7%. isn't herman cain standing in your way in terms of a one on one battle with mitt romney? >> i think aswim of iowa or new hampshire or south carolina or florida or any of the early states look at the plan. obviously this race isn't settleled at all. as they look and see who is it that is going to lay out a plan to get america working. when they look at mit nibbling on the edges and herman cain creating two new sources of taxes and look at our plan that really will get america working and take and know there is a ten year record of bein be sold conservative on issues whether it is on immigration or fiscal conservative issues many or

social issues i i feel confident where we will be on election day. >> chris: campaigns can make candidates stronger. what have you learned in the last two months? >> the thing that i learned is that you pace yourself. it is not aspirant. it is a marathon. and we got -- it is not a sprint. it is a marathon. we worked hard for the last eight plus weeks to go raise the money and had a 17 plus million dollars or 47 day fund raising push so and it is always good to kind of come off the bat the line for a few days and catch your breath. that is what i learned is that don't sprint it, just take a nice easy run at it and continue to stay focused and take your message to the people and i think at the end of the day people in idaho, new hampshire, all of those early states they are going to take a look at this and go this is a guy that has get a record. he has a plan that will actually get america back working and he is consistent and has been all of his life. >> and just finally and

briefly, because you are in a hole as we saw. they are up in the 20s and you are down at 7%. how confident are you that you can get out of that hole and turn this thing around? >> i'm confident we will be out there competing. we a war chest that allows to us get the message out there. a great team put together across the country. we have got not just people in -- on o the ground but we have great volunteers so i feel very confident as people take a look they focus in on what is important about getting america working again. they are going to look at plans. they are going to look at the candidates and the records and go you know what, rick perry is who needs to be leading this country to get us out of this mess that washington, d.c. has got us in. >> chris: governor perry, we will leave it there. thank you so much for coming in and answering all of our questions today. you will be happy to know that the people of austin have treated us great and we will see you on the campaign trail, sir. >> we will see you, sir. ing thank you.

>> chris: with governor perry's appearance we have now interviewed all of the candidates except mitt romney. he has not appear on this program for any sunday talk show since march of 2010. we invited governor romney again this week but his campaign says he is still not did i to sit down for an interview. >> coming up, president obama does it his way, working around congress to push his agenda. we will ask our sunday group how that strategy is working as we continue "fox news sunday" from austin, texas. ♪ one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ you say ♪ flip it over and replay ♪ we'll make everything okay ♪ walk together the right way ♪ do, do, do, do

we can no longer wait for congress to do its job. they need help now. where congress won't act, i will. >> chris: president obama launching his new campaign to work around congress and take executive actions to help the middle class. time for our sunday group back in washington. brit houston fox news senior political analyst. mara liasson, dana perino and juan williams. the president took a series of actions on a west coast swing and announced a plan to help people in danger of foreclosure and help students paying off loans, tax credits to try to get some veterans hired. brit, it reminds me of the buy the sized initiatives that bill

clinton took in 1996 which helped him a lot to give him a sense that he was looking out. do you think this could h help barack obama? >> i think it could. it is unclear how much difference any of the programs will make. he is basically just making adjustments in programs already on the books to try to make the benefits become a little more accessible to people and a lot of people might appreciate that but i don't think in the scheme of things that these are large enough initiatives to make any real difference and certainly not going to have any effect on the big burden that he carries which is the high unemployment rate. back when clinton was doing those things the economy was booming. the economy is not booming and doesn't appear that it will be booming. it he can't do anything to turn that around i think he is working around the edges. >> chris: let's follow up on that, mara, the idea of working around the edges because the analysts have looked at this

and the real life effects are fairly miniscule. according to one analysis his plan to help students with their student loans would mean something like $4 to $8 a week and i guess the question is does that matter? do the facts matter or is the symbolism here i'm with the middle class and congress isn't is that what matters? >> clearly it is the latter. the white house understands the president doesn't have the ability to change the trajectory of the economy. they assume the economy we have today is the economy they will have on election day. the latest economic news shows maybe it won't get any worse. i think when presidents are stym yed congress they use

executive orders. convince people that he is fighting for the middle class and that the republicans blocked him from doing any more. >> chris: there was another interesting development on the president's western campaign swing and he made some remarks at a fundraiser in san francisco. let's watch. >> we lost our ambition and our imagination and our willingness to do the things that built the golden gate bridge and hoover dam and unleashed all of the potential in this country. >> dana, and that is after the president a couple of weeks ago talked about the country getting a little soft competitively. is there any reason, is there a political strategy behind in effect talking down the country. >> not one that i can see and certainly comes interestingly in the wake of the death of steve jobs wid we have celebrated as one of the best innovators in history, maybe world history if we live long

enough to understand that. in the 2010 election if you go back to the mid term president obama actually there was a check on his legislative power because the democrats ran the executive branch and congress. they got everything that they wanted done. healthcare, the banking regulations and the stimulus bill. it was in 2010 that the people said i'm not for that. now, we have divided government. going forward i think if f. they look at the free trade agreements they have been wanting that for a long time. they send them up to the congress and get them done. what happens, president obama at the last minute canceled the rose garden ceremony in order to do the iraq announcement. anything that congress does they don't even want to give them any credit for that so then you look at the bigger picture. i don't think that most people disagree that america has gotten soft but i think they disagree on the reason and the remedy for moving forward. >> chris: juan? >> you know, i think dana is right. most americans say the country is headed in the wrong

direction. agenda inent's aagain da in saying that the country needs that vision in saying we can overcome goes back to the idea that he wants to pass more spending bills on infrastructure which the senate is going to take up. the senate is reluck tant to do it specifically. and chris this week we had some polls that came out that said in fact 52% of americans think that president obama has ideas to produce jobs but he is being blocked by congress. so when you see the president go out with this small agenda he is campaigning against a do nothing congress and again look at poll numbers. president's approval rating right now is in the mid 40s. you hook at the congress approval rating and it is down there at 9%. and republicans in congress about 20-22%. so their approval rating is half of his so he decided you you know what, you may not like me, you may not like some of

the things that i stand for but remember you like congress even less and you will vote for me if i'm running against them. >> when the voters go into the vetting booth they are not going to see a line that says president obama and and a line that says congress. he is running against a nominee willle not necessary bily be burdened with the record of congress who will have an independent approach and by the time they finish the race at the republican side and all dressed up in presidential garb will look stronger than any of those candidates look like now. >> chris: i want to go back to the question of the do nothing congress. we only have 30 seconds here. seem a lot of the voters aren't going to say gee, obama couldn't get his agenda through because obama blocked him. they will say he did get his

agenda true the stimulus and healthcare reform and we don't like it and we don't think it worked. >> he cannot run against the republican congress in the 2012 election. going to tra lay out a vision r the future and the white house will argue that this person wants to take us back and reenact the policies that got us in this position in the first place. the numbers of congress are as low as any congress has been but it will not be the foil for him when the campaign gets going. >> chris: panel, we have to take a break here. up next, the republican presidential race rolls on and both mitt romney and herman cain have to walk back some campaign misstatements. when we return from the texas state history museum in austin.

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i believe based on what i read that the world is getting warmer and humans contribute to that. it is important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be contributors. >> my view is that we don't know what is causing climate change on this planet and the idea of spending trillions and trillions o of dollars to try d reduce co 2 emissions is not the right course for us. >> chris: mitt romney's apparent flip flop this week on global warming. we are back now with the panel.

i think we would all agree that mitt romney's potential liability is his reputation as a flip flopper who changes h his position because of political expediency. he seemed to change his position if free choice act what he said earlier on global warming and the need to control gas conditions and this was is just days after he flipped on the question of whether or not to support that ballot initiative in ohio and whether he supports the joh john kaseks plan. >> how big of a problem is it? >> his single biggest problem. because of the position he is flipping from are positions to whereft of the core of the republican party is. people like it if you change positions and come toward their position. but you are only allowed a certain number of flips before people begin to doubt your

character are and i think romney exhausted his quota some time back and these fresh ones i think are over the limit and i think they he hurt and i don't think the fact that he is flipping in the direction that republicans like will help very much because i think they don't trust him. >> chris: one of romney's rivals former governor john huntsman called romney a perfectly lubricated weather vane on the major issues of the day. we knew as brit mentioned that romney had problems in 2008 on his switches on gay marriage and gun rights and abortion. is he still vulnerable on this? i think he is although last time around the race was more about social issues so he had to make a big effort to show he was a social conservative. he doesn't have to do that this time.

i do think it is a problem for him. i think it will be a problem if he is a nominee. this is clearly the line of attack the white house h use against him. the question right now in the republican race is this going to become a two man race. is rick perry going to be able to revive his campaign enough to really challenge romney or does he have a relatively unimpeded path to the nomination. i think that depends on rick perry and what he can do. a cliche to say you don't get a second chance to make a first impression but perry is really suffering from his first impression. >> chris: an important name we are leave out and i want to bring it out and that is the surprise frontman in the race. herman cain. the des moines register poll just out today. a statistical dead heat. cain at 23% and romney at 22%. well, ahead of the rest of the field and i guess the simple

question is, is herman cain for real? >> certainly. and his numbers show it in the poll numbers and he also raised i think $5 million in one pont. even this week his campaign, too, said we got to slow the pace down here is a little bit. they have five debates in the month of november. interesting to me in the poll is that michele bachmann having won the iowa straw poll just two months ago is polling down at 8% in iowa and down 3% nationally. while it still remains fluid you have to bond ferraro some candidates can keep going. i think maybe through november certainly they can because you can go from debate to debate. >> one, let me bring another aspect of herman cain into this because he had to handle his own damage control this week trying to explain again and disavow the comments he made earlier in which he seemed to suggest that at least in some

cases he supported choice family choice when it comes to abortions. here is what he said this week. >> i use the word choice talking about a specific situation that he was trying to pigeon me hole on. that is what they use to try and come after me. i'm prolife from conception. end of story. >> chris: now, cain's staff tried to blame that on overscheduling and fatigue and said it led to a couple of gaffes on this and other areas and they will scale back his schedule. how much trouble is he in for the statements or are voters because he is not a professional politician willing to cut him someslack? >> bingo, i think that is the answer. we are kind of beforeled by this man's success. if you interview him and ask him tough questions you had the experience with right of return, go on to abortion or

any number of issuesion even the 999 plan which is now a 909 plan. you say hey this stuff even from a conservative point of view doesn't always comfort or make sense. but people like it. the branding is terrific. 999 is the standout policy initiative of the entire gop campaign thus far. ing herman cain i think almost as a snub to mitt romney is described to me by conservatives as aah' then tick. he has passion for conservative positions and they believe is someone who can take the fight to president obama. to me it looks like the grass roots really find him to be the charmer. it is stunning to me, chris, if you look at herman cain that he has lasted this long. everybody talks about oh, well, everybody has a moment in the sunlight. it was michele bachmann as dana was talking about for awhile. even donald trump had a moment in the spot light. rick perry how many you

interviewed this morning was up for awhile once he got into the race. but herman cain once he bumped up he stayed up. i'm stunned by his success. now, the question is does he have the money. he doesn't have the con conmy. this week he had an ad with a guy smoking in it, it went viral. people relate to the the idea you are not going to tell me if i can and can't smoke. plays into the sense of overreaching government. i think he is a on a roll. the establishment doesn't see it but apparently the voters see it. >> chris: thank you all. we have to believe it there. plenty more to talk about. and thank you, panel. we will see you next week. check out panel plus where our group picks right up with the discussion on our web site foxnewssunday.com and we will post the video before noon eastern time. up next as we continue from the state capital of austin, texas, our power player of the week. 4g-- the next evolution in wireless technology.

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>> chris: and we are back reporting from austin. he spoke at the funeral for ronald reagan and officiated at the burial of jfk, jr. he calls it a front row seat to history and he is our power player of the week. >> there is an old saying that sometimes god puts us on our backs in order to get us to look up. >> barry black is chaplain of the u.s. senate who opens each session with a prayer. >> lord, bless our senators in their labors today. >> chris: but he does so much more. running four bible study

groups, and acting as pastor to the senators, staff and their families. 7,000 people. chapter four said there are saints in cesar's household. >> chris: part of it is private counseling. >> do senators come do town hall meetings you with real private issues? >> yes, things that if i told you i would have to kill you. >> chris: senators also seek his advice on policy, especially when it comes to ethical issues such as the 2005 case of whether to remove terri schiavo's feeding tube. some have questioned whether opening the senate with a prayer violates the separation of church and state. black has no doubts. >> there has been uninterrupted

prayer since 1789. >> chris: if the senate can begin its day in prayer, why can't a public school? >> i personally think we probably made a mistake by removing prayers from public schools. >> chris: chaplain black usually asks god for wisdom. this summer as the debt ceiling debate dragged on and the country neared dehe fault his prayers became more urgent. >> we are weary from the struggle, tempted to throw in the towel. >> they were getting a little more intense but that was the way i felt and so i poured out my heart to god. that is what prayer is. >> chris: black grew up in a baltimore housing project. his mother earned $6 a day as a made. she gave her kids five cents for each book of scripture they

could recite. eeoc spent 2spent 20 years in the service before coming to the senate in 2003. black says there was always a plan. >> when i was eight years of age my mother brought home a record and i played it over and over again until i memorized it. >> chris: it was the senate chaplain, peter marshall. >> then follow him. >> i never walk into this building without a sense of wonder and without a sense that this was my destiny. >> chris: amen. >> praise the lord. >> chris: cap lane black was elected to his post when republicans controlled the senate but has stayed on with democrats in charge. in these days of congressional gridlock he is apparently one of the few things the senate can agree on. we will be right backing with a

final word from the texas state history museum here in austin, texas.

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>> chris: that is it for today. our thanks to the great folks in austin, especially >> that's it for today. thanks to the the texas history museum. we're headed back to washington sunday.